


To Please the Gods

by thedevilchicken



Category: Rome
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 03:11:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vorenus wants only to live well and to honour the gods. Saturnalia with Pullo provides a unique, if conflicting, opportunity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Please the Gods

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DragoJustine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragoJustine/gifts).



They were drunk when they stumbled in from the tavern, clothes soaked in cheap spilled wine and Pullo's makeshift pileus, borrowed from Vorenus knew not where, was nowhere to be found. It didn't seem to matter; Pullo wore a big, easy smile as he swayed a little in the courtyard though whether that was the drink in him or the pipes and drums drifting in on spiced air from the streets outside, Vorenus honestly couldn't tell for the life of him.

He hadn't planned on leaving home that evening. He could have stayed in the house and slept or exercised, his muscles almost aching for action since he'd come home from the legions – he could have oiled the leather of his uniform or sharpened his sword but no, some hours ago the doors had been flung wide open with a cry of "Io, Saturnalia!" in that oh so familiar tone that always meant nothing but trouble. Pullo was persuasive and muttered something not quite under his breath about Saturnalia not being a time to polish your own sword before dragging him off almost literally into the crowds.

Pullo liked to find excuses to drink, Vorenus thought, as the first mug of wine was passed his way, sloshing over the table and his fingers on its way. This was as good a festival for it as any, he supposed, though Pullo tended to latch onto any excuse to experience life's pleasures more than its virtues – the inebriation then was almost compulsory as Saturn was unchained and Rome put on her yearly show of codified reversal, slaves and masters trading places within certain tightly sanctioned bounds and excess in all things was raised almost to the level of a sacred ritual. That was Pullo's excuse set out for him – surely Vorenus didn't want to anger Saturn, did he? A man of principle and honour such as Lucius Vorenus wouldn't want to offend his gods at a time of festival.

He didn't, of course. He took the wine and drank; eight hours later he woke in a bed that wasn't his own with Pullo beside him of all the people in Rome, stinking of wine and sweat and sex with a gap the size of Gaul where the previous night should have been. The one small mercy was that Pullo was fast asleep in bed and snoring even as Vorenus fled the scene.

At home, his head pounding out the beat of the march through his temples as he tried to eat and found his appetite elusive, he told himself this was nothing, this was fine, just further proof if in fact any were needed that Pullo and wine did _not_ mix well. He tried to shake it off, telling himself never again if just because he was starting to get older and these days wine lingered well past its welcome where in his youth there'd been no such obstacle. At that moment as he eyed his breakfast with a lurch of his stomach, he felt none of the dignity supposed to come with age. He just felt sick, which he admittedly preferred to the shame that bit at his heels.

"Io, Saturnalia!" was the cry and he tried so hard to resist that night, vague excuses without the lies he refused to tell that Pullo shrugged off blithely, that same old easy smile on his face that brought him back to the wine and meat and singing that had never played too large a role in Vorenus' life. They were out until dawn, that much he remembered the following day, and the women in the brothel he remembered too. He couldn't bring himself to ask the gods if he dishonoured the memory of his dead wife with his actions but the thought was there like a seed in the back of his mind, growing in the dark as he tried to distract himself with other things. However, those other things were immediately the presence of Titus Pullo in his bed when he woke sometime past noon. He didn't have to pull back the sheet to know the solid weight beside him, warm skin and the bulk of muscle, was far from feminine in form. He didn't have to investigate to know that for the second night in a row, they'd shared a bed.

If it hadn't been for the festival, Vorenus would have thrown himself into his work. As it was, everything had stopped for the seven days of the festival of Saturn and Sol Invictus, and so he had little to do to occupy his time and take his mind from wandering over what had and hadn't happened between him and Pullo. His body felt tight, muscles aching, though whether or not that was the lingering effects of wine he couldn't be sure; the only certainty would be in asking Pullo, but that hardly seemed acceptable. All he could say for sure was whatever had happened should _not_ have happened, of that much he was certain.

The third night came and with it that same familiar call. There was no point in resisting; he left the house and went with Pullo.

There were dreams that night, lurid, flashes behind his eyes of the shift of muscle under tanned skin, sweat in lamplight, a gasp as his teeth bit down at a corded neck and the rasp of stubble against his jaw. He woke hard in sweat-damp sheets, left naked to relieve himself in relative silence with his forehead resting against the wall, eyes shut as he knelt there in the courtyard dust with his hand at his cock and Titus Pullo in his head. He spent his seed in the dirt and washed himself down, unsettled and tense. He had to put this out of mind, that was all there was to it.

The day passed slowly, meals that couldn't incite his appetite, the many small tasks that ran together to form the daily running of a household. He seemed an ill fit for his skin, raked his fingers through his hair as he broke bread for the midday meal and left it for the others when all those things to which he'd told himself he would _not_ allow his thoughts to stray swarmed vivid in his head. All too soon the fourth night came, and with it that knock on the doors, with it the voice of Titus Pullo.

They left together, drank together, ate and drank some more. There was dancing around them, song, whirls of colour in the women's skirts and the men's most gaudy dress and there were moments when Vorenus could see the charm in the festival when he knew from experience just how hard life could be. There was excess, yes, but in a world where a thin line stood between life and death, where men starved in the street while patricians dined from golden platters, he wondered if he could grudge them that excess. And who was he to set his morals so high above their own?

What he had in his head the next morning was absurd, as he lay there in bed beside the snoring hulk of ex-legionary. He left without a word, dressed and slipped into the icy streets, the chill in the air right down to the bone as if he were back in Gaul and not the streets of Rome. In a way he missed Gaul, the simplicity of that life, a soldier because that was all he'd ever had in his blood or his heart. He wasn't made for private citizenship and while he'd fight and die for Rome and what it stood for, he often thought he despised the reality. It was early enough that a few hardy revellers were still chuckling in the streets, drunk and barely lucid, and somehow that made home seem preferable. The walk hadn't cleared his head at all, at least not in the way that he'd wanted.

He was ready when Pullo came calling that night. He wasn't surprised to wake beside him, to the snore like a horse on the pillow to his right. He sighed as the fragments of the evening didn't quite drop into place, the spilled wine and the sweet fruit that dribbled over Pullo's chin, the laughter and the music like they tried to chase one year into the next. Pullo's sticky-sweet wine-stained skin in the light of the lamp, fumbling fingers, nervous laughter.

It didn't register until too late when the snoring stopped beside him. By the time he made to move, Pullo was already awake.

"We didn't fuck if that's what you're thinking," Pullo said, his voice low and rough and maybe that was the drink but really, who knew.

"I wasn't thinking," Vorenus said, not quite a lie but close enough to sting even so.

"There's no chance you weren't thinking," Pullo said and it seemed like there was a smile in his voice then. Vorenus frowned without opening his eyes, not sure how to react to this, not sure if he could believe it when his body tried to tell him an entirely different story, when things were in his mind that he couldn't have dreamed up. "We were too drunk."

That wasn't a consolation.

"Io, Saturnalia!"

Vorenus, resigned, left the house and went with Pullo to the tavern. There was wine and meat, dancing and song, gift candles people lit on the tables to light up the night like Sol Invictus, and Vorenus couldn't say whether he felt he should be there or not. He'd always tried to honour the gods in his own way, always stayed true to his conscience and lived a stoic life free from the excesses of Rome no matter how he loved her. Yet there he was, reflecting on the shadows cast over Pullo's body by the flicker of the candlelight, and the bite mark faint but present at the crook of his neck. They might not have fucked but there'd been something there. He was willing to bet that was the pattern of his own teeth at Pullo's neck.

He was drunk when they stumbled in from the tavern, yes. He was drunk enough that he stumbled up the stairs into his room with one arm slung around Pullo's shoulders as they walked. He was _not_ drunk enough that the situation escaped him that night.

Pullo's mouth met his in a clumsy struggle as they edged toward the bed, hands tugging at wine-soaked clothing over wine-stained skin. Pullo's chest was sticky with it and he paused, bemused at the idea that he wanted to set his mouth there, lick it from him with the salt-musk of his skin. He stepped back, unsteady, shaking his head.

"It's just for Saturn," Pullo said, as he sat himself down on the bed, his weight making the wooden frame groan. "Two more nights, Vorenus. Why don't you make the gods happy."

It shouldn't have worked. In the morning, memory coming in flashes of heat and skin and sights he'd never thought he'd see, he couldn't believe it had. But it was the seventh night that brought him low.

There was no wine when he left that night, just the appearance of it when he took the mugs that they passed around. When they left near dawn in the chill of the early morning, Vorenus was as sober as he knew how to be. When Pullo kissed him, blunt fingers in his short hair, he knew exactly what was happening. He meant to stop it. He just never quite got there.

There's a certain amount of shame he feels the day the festival has ended. There's a certain amount of guilt as he looks at Pullo, knowing what's passed. He puts away the memories of the salty sweetness of wine on sweat-damp skin, of the taste of Pullo's mouth, of the weight of his cock against his belly as they lay there hard and desperate. He tries hard to see the virtue in Pullo spread there on his back, panting as they spent a hazy hour of heat and sweat and the slap of skin on skin. He never thought this would happen to him.

But Pullo tells him Saturn's pleased, and he doesn't have the heart to disagree. Besides, when Pullo smiles that easy smile, it's hard to believe the gods disapprove.


End file.
